German Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction

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The German Committee for Disaster Preparedness e. V. (DKKV) is an association based in Bonn with the purpose of promoting disaster risk management. The DKKV describes itself as a competence center for all national and international questions of disaster prevention and as an intermediary to international organizations and initiatives that are active in the field of disaster risk reduction. The chairperson is (after Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski , Hans Koschnick , Norbert Blüm , Irmgard Schwaetzer , Gerold Reichenbach and Annegret Thieken) currently (2020) Katja Dörner .

history

Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR)

The 1990s were declared the Decade for the Reduction of Natural Disasters (IDNDR) by the United Nations in order to create greater awareness of the social, ecological and economic consequences of increasing damage from extreme natural events. The focus was on the development of strategies for disaster risk reduction in order to effectively reduce or mitigate the catastrophic effects of natural events. The IDNDR Secretariat at the United Nations in Geneva became the center of all activities ; At the same time, the member states were called upon to meet their national responsibility by setting up national committees.

While the IDNDR was initially strongly scientifically and technically oriented and the focus was on the implementation of existing technologies worldwide, the UN Conference on the Reduction of Natural Disasters in Yokohama in 1994 for the first time brought socio-economic aspects of disaster risk management to the fore. It was found that technical solutions alone could not offer enough protection against disasters, but that the potentially affected people with their abilities and creative possibilities as well as their social and economic environment had to be more involved. With the recognition of disaster risk management as a component of sustainable development, the original goals of the IDNDR were expanded. At the end of the decade , the IDNDR was replaced by the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR) with its own secretariat, also based in Geneva.

Foundation of the German Committee for Disaster Risk Management V.

Against the background of the Decade to Reduce Natural Disasters and the UN call to found national committees, the then Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher established the German IDNDR Committee for Disaster Prevention in Bonn in 1990 . In 1999 the name of the association was changed to Deutsches Komitee Katastrophenvorsorge eV (DKKV).

Former Chair

Katja Dörner 2019 - today

Annegret Thieken 2015–2019

Gerold Reichenbach 2011–2015

Irmgard Schwaetzer 2001–2011

Norbert Blüm 1999-2001

Hans Koschnick 1996–1998

Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski 1992–1996

The activities of the IDNDR Committee and the DKKV until 2015

The IDNDR Committee, or its successor the DKKV, acted as the national contact point for UNISDR (today United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction UNDRR) and UNFCCC ( United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change ) and had set up a scientific and operational advisory board.

The national and international activities of the committee included:

  • Support for and participation in international frameworks (e.g. [Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the resilience of nations and communities to disasters], Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 ) and national strategies (e.g. German Adaptation Strategy to climate change)
  • Inventory of disaster scenarios and precautionary deficits
  • Expert discussions, specialist conferences (e.g. disaster risk management forum), working groups, advanced training seminars
  • Political advice to the Federal Chancellery and the Ministry of the Interior
  • Media events and film productions, press events
  • Cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
  • International cooperation z. B. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Nicaragua, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco
  • Expert missions, development of capacities e.g. B. through training courses
  • Development of national platforms, e.g. B. Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan

Due to changed framework conditions, etc. a. the further dissemination of expertise on disaster risk reduction in other institutions, a strategic realignment of the DKKV was aimed for in 2015. The 2020+ strategy describes the fields of work and objectives of the DKKV.

German Committee for Disaster Risk Reduction

Objective and strategy 2020+

  1. ↑ DKKV: DKKV. DKKV, accessed on January 23, 2020 .

The DKKV bundles and promotes communication between government, administrative, aid, research and training institutions as well as companies and aims to strengthen society's resilience and ability to learn. The DKKV understands resilience in a transformative sense in that learning from past and anticipated developments is placed in the foreground. Thanks to its unique selling proposition - its network character within disaster risk management - the DKKV is particularly capable of bringing key players around the table and, as a discussion platform, it opens up considerable potential in terms of knowledge. This enables both a comprehensive evaluation of event sequences and planning as well as the development of concrete recommendations and priorities for research and practice.

The association is not an operational organization, ie it does not manage its own projects and does not send its own employees in the event of a disaster. Rather, it sees itself as a central point for bundling theoretical and practical knowledge in order to derive long-term measures for disaster prevention. The area of ​​responsibility of the DKKV is therefore in the area of ​​pensions. The DKKV particularly supports interdisciplinary research approaches to disaster risk management in other specialist sectors as well as in politics and business and the dissemination of the knowledge of disaster risk management at all levels of education. In addition, it recommends the implementation of the existing knowledge on disaster risk management in politics, business and administration, the further development of cross-disciplinary and cross-border cooperation in operational disaster risk management and the development of media strategies to promote and strengthen preparedness in society.

Fields of work

The 2020+ strategy defines three core areas of work for the DKKV.

1) network

Expand and strengthen the existing network of DKKV in order to enable exchange and synergies between practice and science.

2) advice

Competent advice to decision-makers to make risk prevention and crisis management fit for the future.

3) Knowledge transfer

Bundling knowledge and creating awareness.

The DKKV as a research partner

Research plays an important role in the further development of disaster risk reduction strategies and in the entire area of ​​civil protection. The broad networking is a unique selling point of the DKKV, which makes it particularly suitable as a partner in research projects in the field of disaster risk reduction and civil protection. As a network, the DKKV has the particular opportunity to bring diverse expertise from various operational and scientific areas of disaster risk reduction into research projects and to network them with one another. Here it is the concern of the DKKV to establish the connection between science, practice and politics and to support needs-oriented research projects. In particular, the coordination of research activities, the design of communication within research consortia and beyond, as well as the synthesis of research results and their needs and target group-oriented dissemination are in the foreground.

The DKKV brings the following activities into research projects:

coordination

The DKKV coordinates activities in research projects and plans and, thanks to the broad expertise of its network, can efficiently guide research work and build on existing work in order to generate synergies and avoid duplicate research.

communication

The DKKV can control the communication between individual partners in research projects and organize the dissemination of the research results to national and international recipients in a targeted manner.

synthesis

Thanks to its extensive network of different expertise, the DKKV is particularly suitable for creating syntheses of existing research results and procedures and preparing them as required.

The DKKV is actively involved in several national and international research projects. Which projects these are currently can be found on the DKKV's [website].

organization structure

The association pursues exclusively charitable purposes. In accordance with its objective of integrated disaster risk management, the DKKV brings together actors from the areas of politics, business, media, administration, science, technology, development cooperation and disaster control relevant to disaster risk reduction.

The highest decision-making body is the annual general meeting.

The elected board takes over the strategic and operational management. The DKKV is currently (2020) managed by a nine-member board.

Members

Members of the DKKV can be both legal and natural persons.

Institutional Members

Personal members In addition to the institutional members, the DKKV currently has around 60 personal members (as of 2020). Many personal members are employed at universities and scientific institutions that deal with topics of disaster risk reduction. In order to strengthen the next generation here, students and young professionals can join the association for a reduced membership fee.

Young professionals in the field of disaster risk reduction are particularly important to DKKV and its members. For this reason, the “Preparedness 2030” award for young talent has been awarded since 2018 in cooperation with the German Climate Foundation. In 2020 the DKKV sponsorship award will be supported by the German Aerospace Center .

Network partnerships The DKKV is involved in a number of national and international networks and is actively involved in shaping them. The DKKV acts u. a. as the national contact point for IRDR and is a member of the Bonn network for international disaster control and risk management.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DKKV: DKKV_Strategie 2020. DKKV, accessed on January 23, 2020 .
  2. ^ DKKV: The DKKV as a research partner. In: DKKV. DKKV, accessed on January 23, 2020 .
  3. ↑ DKKV: Dkkv_Satzung. DKKV, accessed on January 27, 2020 .
  4. ↑ DKKV: DKKV Board of Directors. DKKV, accessed on January 27, 2020 .
  5. ↑ DKKV: DKKV members. Retrieved January 27, 2020 .